This absorbing book, written by an author who lived in and studied Japan for many years, provides a fresh perspective on Japan's history, politics, and culture over the past hundred years. It traces Japan's phenomenal development into one of the world's great powers, portraying events in Japan and its rapid industrialization as they were shaped by Japanese decision makers rather than as they were perceived by the outside world.

Beginning in 1890, the year in which the country's first modern constitution came into being and the Imperial Diet was first convened, Sydney Giffard describes...